Inplace

Inplace is a Matlab package for working with matrices and vectors that are passed by reference instead of by value. This package allows variables to functions to be modified inplace. Previously, this behavior was not possible in Matlab.

To install, see the installation section of the documentation page: http://www.stanford.edu/~dgleich/programs/inplace/

It provides two classes, ipdouble and ipint32 (inplace double and inplace int32) that wrap Matlab's double and int32 matrices and vectors. The idea behind the package is simply to provide a way to modified arguments to a function directly without the necessity of returning the result and the hence, eliminating a copy required.

Example:
function a=func1(a)
a(1) = a(1)+1;
function func2(ipd)
ipd(1) = ipd(1)+1;
a = ones(5,1);
ipd = ipdouble(a);
a = func1(a);
func2(ipd); % accomplishes the same result without the copy at the end of the function.